Medina County’s first settlement
Lodi is the oldest settlement in Medina County. The Harris family settled here in 1811, and the village was first called Harrisville, after Judge Joseph Harris. The current name echoes Lodi in northern Italy, where Napoleon won a battle in 1796, and the village incorporated in 1891.
Some of the village’s layout comes straight from that era. An early settler named Redfield, for whom Redfield Street is named, cut the first route to Medina through the woods. It was later straightened into the first government road through the area, and that road became U.S. Route 42.
Lodi also sits on a quiet geographic line: the East Fork of the Black River runs through the village, and the village straddles the divide where rain flows either north to Lake Erie or south toward the Ohio River.
Lodi’s housing: older, smaller and more mixed
Lodi’s housing looks different from the subdivisions in Brunswick or Medina. The Census figures:
- Median year built: 1961. About 20% of homes date from 1939 or earlier.
- Single-family detached houses: about 61%, so roughly four in ten homes are attached units, apartments or mobile homes.
- Mobile homes: about 12% of all housing, one of the highest shares in the county.
- Owner-occupied: about 67%. Median rent is about $902.
- Median home value, as owners report it: about $158,600.
That mix means a Lodi seller can be holding almost anything: a small older house near the center, a duplex, a rental or a manufactured home. Each has its own sticking point:
- Mobile homes need a clean title, and lenders are cautious with them. See selling a mobile home in Ohio and, if the title is missing, replacing a lost mobile home title.
- Rentals come with leases and deposits that transfer to the buyer. Selling a house with tenants covers the rules.
- Pre-1978 houses carry a federal lead paint disclosure, and many have old wiring or plumbing a buyer’s inspector will note.
Village services and the Lodi plan
Lodi has its own Board of Public Affairs, the body Ohio villages use to run municipal utilities, which meets at Village Hall alongside the village council and planning commission. When you sell, ask the village for a final utility reading and pay any balance, because an unpaid municipal bill can be certified to the property taxes. Our guide on water bill liens in Ohio explains how that happens.
The village has a hospital inside its limits that is part of the Cleveland Clinic Akron General system, plus a Medina County District Library branch. Its recent comprehensive plan sets goals to keep the small-town character, maintain existing neighborhoods and add a range of housing types and price points. Students attend the Cloverleaf Local School District, which formed in 1957 when Lodi, Westfield Center, Seville, Chatham and Lafayette combined their schools.
How a Lodi sale with us works
If you own a well-kept house in Lodi with no deadline, listing it is usually the way to get top dollar, and we’ll tell you so. We fit when the house needs work, has tenants or belongs to an estate. Bob Donahue walks the property in about 15 to 20 minutes, we put a written offer in front of you, and you pick the closing date. Lodi estates go through the Medina County Probate Court; our Medina County page covers that court and the county’s conveyance fee. Start with a free offer.